A letter to … The man who stopped

Saturday 1 September 2012 10.44 EDT
First published on Saturday 1 September 2012 10.44 EDT

I have no idea who you were, or what you were doing in the town centre on that weekday morning. What is probably for you a tiny, long forgotten incident had a profound impact on me and helped me on a very difficult day. You had no way of knowing that the funeral procession passing along the street was for my adored Nan and that I was sitting in the car behind the hearse, trying desperately to work out how our lives would go on without her.

I was 16, en route to my first funeral, struggling with my first real loss. For the whole of that endless, painful journey, as I tried not to see the coffin in front, I looked out of the window. I could not understand how the shoppers and workers carried on as normal while we were steeped in misery. How could our aching, all-consuming grief not reach out and touch them?

Two people out of hundreds acknowledged the funeral procession. A man in the street where my grandparents lived stopped to take off his cap, and you, a stranger at a roundabout, paused, bowed your head and put your hand over your heart. You were young, maybe in your 20s, Asian, and in my memory your jumper is blue. You alone out of all of those crowds of people halted your day to acknowledge my nan's passing, even though you had no idea who she was. I can see you standing there among the passers-by, head lowered in a moment of stillness, entirely unselfconscious.

More than a decade later I still think of you when I think of that day. You raised my spirits and made me feel less alone, knowing that a stranger cared. It is because of you I always stop and bow my head when a funeral procession passes, a sign of respect for the life that has gone and the people who mourn.